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Monday, January 13, 2014

The Legend of Hercules

Review by Pete Roche

Thracian King Amphitryon (Scott
Adkins) is a power-mad overlord who conquers neighboring Grecian provinces
simply because he can.Tired of her
husband’s hubris, Queen Alcmene (Roxanne McKee) prays to goddess Hera for an
end to the king’s warring ways and an era of peace for her people.Hera arranges for Alcmene to conceive the
demigod child of Zeus and—vis-à-vis a ghoulish-looking proxy—assures her the
boy will one day overthrow the king and restore order.

Amphitryon detests his stepson
from birth.Convinced he’s been
cuckholded by a mortal man, he alienates Alcmene and promises to bequeath his
kingdom to his elder son, Iphicles (Liam Garrigan).

Twenty years on, Iphicles (Liam
Garrigan) and Hercules (TWILIGHT’s Kellan Lutz) are siblings in a house divided.To garner favor with his father, weasely,
conniving Iphicles takes credit for Hercules’ good deeds and heroic feats, including
the defeat of the Namean Lion.The
brothers also compete for the hand of comely Cretan princess Hebe (Gaia
Weiss).Hercules and Hebe are hot for
one another and frequently wander off to swim at a remote waterfall, but manipulative
Amphitryon arranges for Iphicles to wed Hebe, inherit the throne, and
perpetuate his prickly rule.

Needless to say, the young lovers
are pissed.Hebe flees the city and
Hercules follows, valiantly fighting off his stepfather’s soldiers until he’s
overwhelmed and apprehended at the pond hangout.Hoping to permanently rid himself of his
stubborn half-son, annoyed Amphitryon dispatches Hercules on a far-away
military campaign with young general Satiris (Liam McIntyre).

“I pray you have many victories,”
hisses Iphicles.“For if you return I
shall kill you!”

Hercules blows off his brother
and begrudgingly accepts the assignment, venturing across the desert on
horseback. Satiris finds it peculiar they’ve
been sent away with a fraction of their usual regiment and frets over their
vulnerability.He knows Amphitryon isn’t
pleased with Hercules, but neither he nor the brawny prince suspect the
duplicitous king has orchestrated their end.Ambushed in a cave, their numbers decimated, brave Hercules and Satiris
are captured and sold into slavery.

Their master pits them in
gladiatorial death-matches and is dazzled by Hercules’ strength, which hasn’t
even reached its full potential.An
early battle has Hercules and Satiris sparring with two ugly adversaries while
precariously perched on a series of craggy columns.Even if the blow from an enemy’s sword or
spear tip doesn’t kill them, the fall most certainly will.

In a bid for freedom, Hercules
talks Lucius into entering them in a high-stakes arena contest back in Greece.Things don’t go as neatly as planned, but—after
taking on six seasoned combatants by himself—all the scheming and scrapping pays
off:Hercules and Satiris are liberated
in their old neighborhood, where they clandestinely rebel against Amphitryon’s
police tactics like Greco-Roman incarnations of Robin Hood and Little
John.

The king isn’t pleased Hercules
still lives, and even is less tickled to learn his prodigal stepson has rallied
the common folk against his stranglehold.Iphicles insists on marrying Hebe, despite the maiden’s protest, so
Hercules must act fast and accept his demigod ancestry if he’s to thwart both
personal and political disaster.

But we’ve already lost interest
by the time Hercules embraces his destiny and is blessed with super-strength.When the muscle-bound hero stages an
eleventh-hour escape and bullwhips a small army with chains, we wince at how
corny everything looks and feels instead of reveling in Hercules’ triumph.Even without a rewrite, the final showdown
between Lutz’s hero and Adkin’s evil king could have been much more, given
Harlin’s knack for over-the-top action and Adkin’s background in martial
arts.Instead, we’re given another rote
“You stab, I parry” duel with a couple slow-motion somersaults and table-flips
thrown for added measure.

Without having earned our
emotional investment in these people or their problems, Harlin’s uber-cool camera
freezes and “bullet-time” fisticuffs amount to a whole lot visual noise. The 3D effects make airborne objects (spears,
pollen, fog, and stars) really pop—but they can’t salvage the flat
screenplay.

Lutz’s wooden portrayal doesn’t
help, but most of the blame lay with the anemic, unoriginal script.Nearly everything in LEGEND OF HERCULES has
been seen before.The titular
character’s quest co-opts the journeys depicted in superior sword-and-sandals swashbucklers
like Zack Snyder’s 300 and Ridley Scott’s GLADIATOR, which effectively
jump-started the genre back in 2000.Hercules’ reluctance to call upon his Olympic father is a rehash of Perseus’
inner conflict in both CLASH and WRATH OF THE TITANS, and what would otherwise
be a throwaway boat scene showing a dozen glistening, bare-chested slaves
rowing below decks instantly recalls BEN-HUR.The heavy-handed allusions to the passion of Christ (“Father, I believe
in you”) are also cumbersome.

Moreover, the relationship
between the embittered brothers played by Lutz and Garrigan echoes that of Thor
and Loki in the recent Marvel films about the Asgardian thunder god.Like Thor, Hercules is brash but
happy-go-lucky, while steely-eyed Iphicles (like Loki) is a spoiled,
Machiavellian careerist.There’s even a
physical resemblance between these guys and their THOR analogs (Chris Hemsworth
and Tom Hiddleston), notwithstanding the haircuts.

Fortunately, this LEGEND only
lasts 90 minutes.Disappointingly, it
avoids Hercules more familiar feats of strength, such as his fabled “Twelve
Labours.”Beyond besting the lion,
Hercules’ quibble here is with rotten humans instead of mythological monsters.He doesn’t wrestle a hydra, choke-hold a boar,
or grapple with the three-headed Cerebus—any of which might’ve livened things
up.Heck, even the mediocre remake of
CLASH had giant scorpions, Medusa, and a Kraken.

Dwayne “The Rock” Johnson is no
Charlton Heston, but perhaps he will deliver the excitement Lutz couldn’t when
his own HERCULES picture opens next summer.With his oaken arms and talent for transforming two-dimensional cops and
soldiers into larger-than-life action figures, Johnson might just own Hercules the
same way Schwarzenegger personified CONAN THE BARBARIAN’s iconic heathen. 1 1/2 out of 4 stars.